We tend to think that simply giving people money makes them lazy. Yet a wealth of scientific research proves the contrary: free money helps. It is time for a radical reform of the welfare state.
It’s really beyond me, why we don’t do this and why it’s not even publicly discussed. Great read!
If you’re not doing so already, you really should read The Intercept:
The Intercept, the first of First Look’s digital magazines, is founded and led by award-winning journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Jeremy Scahill. Its initial focus will be new reporting involving the disclosures made to them by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The horrific murder of the editor, cartoonists and other staff of the irreverent satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, along with two policemen, by terrorists in Paris was in my view a strategic strike, aiming at polarizing the French and European public.
Hier ist nur einer der vielen guten Abschnitte in Jakob Augsteins Artikel:
Wenn wir erlauben, dass das Grauen von uns Besitz ergreift, dann ist das der wahre Triumph des Terrorismus. Nach den Anschlägen vom 11. September 2001 waren die USA dieser Herausforderung nicht gewachsen. Sie waren zu schwach. Im Kampf mit Osama Bin Laden haben die USA die schwerste Niederlage ihrer Geschichte erlitten: Sie haben gegen sich selbst verloren. Abu Ghuraib, die Folterkeller der CIA, die Bespitzelung der Welt durch die NSA - Amerika hat sich verändert. Wenn das noch der Westen ist, wer will dann Westen sein?
This:
We are richer, and mightier, and far more deadly than any of our terrorist foes could dream of being. And yet we happily play into their hands. We declare a “War on Terror” of our own making, an absurd construct with no possible victory. We overreact so harshly to every injury that our reputation as bullies and savages is confirmed. We allow ourselves to be cowed by fear. We allow ourselves to be rendered senseless by rage. The terrorist lays the bait, and we give him the terror he seeks. The terrorist may be the criminal, but we are the hapless suckers who make his act worthwhile.
Just one excerpt of another great article on this topic:
France is in sorrow today, and will be for many weeks to come. We mourn with France. We ought to. But it is also true that violence from “our” side continues unabated. By this time next month, in all likelihood, many more “young men of military age” and many others, neither young nor male, will have been killed by U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan and elsewhere. If past strikes are anything to go by, many of these people will be innocent of wrongdoing. Their deaths will be considered as natural and incontestable as deaths like Menocchio’s, under the Inquisition. Those of us who are writers will not consider our pencils broken by such killings. But that incontestability, that unmournability, just as much as the massacre in Paris, is the clear and present danger to our collective liberté.
Report-turned-rant by Glenn Greenwald:
Think about the “defending terrorism” criminal offense for which Dieudonné has been arrested. Should it really be a criminal offense – causing someone to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned – to say something along these lines: western countries like France have been bringing violence for so long to Muslims in their countries that I now believe it’s justifiable to bring violence to France as a means of making them stop? If you want “terrorism defenses” like that to be criminally prosecuted (as opposed to societally shunned), how about those who justify, cheer for and glorify the invasion and destruction of Iraq, with its “Shock and Awe” slogan signifying an intent to terrorize the civilian population into submission and its monstrous tactics in Fallujah? Or how about the psychotic calls from a Fox News host, when discussing Muslims radicals, to “kill them ALL.” Why is one view permissible and the other criminally barred – other than because the force of law is being used to control political discourse and one form of terrorism (violence in the Muslim world) is done by, rather than to, the west?
Die Geheimdienste betreiben nicht mehr nur Überwachung und Spionage. Dokumente aus dem Fundus von Edward Snowden, die dem SPIEGEL vorliegen, zeigen: Sie wollen die Herrschaft im Internet und bereiten digitale Kriege vor.
Sascha Lobo mal wieder:
Es ist eine quasireligiöse, esoterische Hoffnung, dass die konzernunterstützte EDV-Abteilung des Staats ein weltpolitisches Versagen ausbügeln könne.
Vortrag von Dr. phil. Daniele Ganser: Die Terroranschläge vom 11. September 2001 und die Folgen
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (above) said this week in Homburg that the U.S. Government threatened to cease sharing intelligence with Germany if Berlin offered asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden or otherwise arranged for him to travel to that country. “They told us they would stop notifying us of plots and other intelligence matters,” Gabriel said.
So genial.
Es wird in diesen Tagen oft kritisiert, dass Angela Merkel sich lieber nicht persönlich zur BND-Affäre äußert. Unseren Kolumnisten stört das auch, es wundert ihn aber nicht. Deshalb hat er aufgeschrieben, was Merkel eigentlich sagen will.
Sascha Lobo in Hochform!
Richard David Precht diskutiert mit Sahra Wagenknecht über linke Utopien, gesellschaftliche Zusammenhänge und digitale Revolution.
"We think that more people will be a little bit happier and find a job anyway."